Manuscript Preparation

Online copyright transfer

Keloid Research requires all authors of accepted manuscripts to provide electronic copyright transfer signatures or to document their status as an NIH or other U.S. federal employee and thus unable to transfer copyright. Upon acceptance of a manuscript, an e-mail will be sent to all coauthors with instructions for providing their electronic signatures. Articles will not be published until all signatures are received by Keloid Research.

Manuscript file format

A Microsoft Word (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf) file of your accepted manuscript is required to allow the manuscript to be copy-edited and composed. You will be requested to upload the final text document after acceptance. Please note that publication of your article will be put on hold until you upload a Word or RTF document. You must make sure that the document you submit is the same as the one accepted. There cannot be ANY content changes from the final accepted version; however, you should remove any highlighted or red-lined text that may have been inserted to indicate revisions to the original submission.

 Cover illustrations

Cover illustrations are chosen by the Editor-in-Chief. Authors who submit a manuscript are encouraged to include a color image they consider suitable for the cover of Keloid Research as a supplemental file, with reference to this suggested cover figure in the cover letter to the Editor-in-Chief. The author must own copyright to the image. The image must be sharp enough to allow magnification to the full size of the 6½ x 11 in. image area. Include a brief caption explaining the content of the figure.

Authorship criteria

All authors listed in a manuscript submitted to Keloid Research must have contributed substantially to the work. Upon submission of the manuscript, the corresponding author must indicate, in the online submission and in the Authorship section of the manuscript, the specific contribution of each author. Examples of appropriate designations include: designed research, performed research, contributed vital new reagents or analytical tools, collected data, analyzed and interpreted data, performed statistical analysis, and/or wrote the manuscript. An author may list more than one type of contribution and more than one author may have contributed to the same aspect of the work. The corresponding author assumes responsibility for obtaining permission from all coauthors for the submission of any/all version(s) of the manuscript and for any changes in authorship.

If authorship is attributed to a group listed as author (e.g., only the group name is in the byline or in addition to one or more individual authors), all members of the group must meet the full criteria and requirements for authorship as described above and they are acknowledged as authors in Medline. The group members who do not meet the formal authorship criteria listed above but who contributed materially as collaborators may be named in the Appendix and if the manuscript is accepted, their names will be listed in an online supplemental Appendix. The group members listed in Acknowledgments or in the Appendix are acknowledged as collaborators in Medline/PubMed.

All individuals share responsibility for any manuscript they coauthor. Some coauthors have responsibility for the entire manuscript as an accurate, verifiable report of the research. These include coauthors accountable for the conception or execution of the research reported in the paper, the integrity and analysis of the data, or the writing of the manuscript. Coauthors with specific, limited contributions to a paper are responsible for their contributions but may have only limited responsibility for other results. While not all coauthors may be familiar with all aspects of the research presented in the manuscript, all coauthors should have in place an appropriate process for reviewing the accuracy of the reported results. Each author should review and approve the manuscript before publication.  The corresponding author is responsible for the integrity of the work as a whole.

For more information on this important topic, see the Authorship section in the CSE’s White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications.


Principles for publication of medical research involving human subjects

All studies that involve human subjects must abide by the rules of the appropriate institutional review board (or equivalent organization) of the institution in which the research was conducted and by the tenets of the World Medical Association’s most recently revised Declaration of Helsinki.

Published studies that involve human subjects should not provide subjects’ identifying information (e.g., names, true initials, recognizable images) unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or the patient’s parent/guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. If your study requires the appropriate written consent, please submit a patient-signed copy of the consent to our Editorial Office.


Errata

Errata are short corrections to published articles. They may correct scientific errors which may result in misunderstandings but do not change the conclusions of the article, errors of omission (such as author names or references), or errors in the writing or publication process. Errata are subject to editorial approval.

References

Include references in numerical order at the end of the article according to the order of citation in the manuscript text. Text citations of reference should consist of superscript numbers.  If you use citation software, check it carefully to ensure that it formats your references according to the current Keloid Research style.

Footnotes and abbreviations

Do not use footnotes; instead, sparingly use parenthetical statements within text. Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and thereafter applied consistently throughout the article. Do not use nonstandard abbreviations or abbreviate terms appearing fewer than three times. Give the chemical name of a compound after the first use of the common name. The common name may be used throughout the article. Abbreviate units of measure only when used with numbers.

Figures

When submitting a manuscript for review, image file formats accepted for uploading include: JPEG (.jpg), PDF, TIFF, and EPS. PowerPoint (.ppt) files are acceptable but are strongly discouraged due to conversion issues and poor resolution in the published article.

High-resolution image files are not preferred for initial submission as the file sizes may be too large. The total file size of the PDF for peer review should not exceed 10 MB. However, high-resolution figures are required for accepted articles entering into pre-production.

Figures legends

All legends must begin with a short, descriptive sentence that summarizes the intent and content of the figure. This sentence should be in boldfaced font. A more detailed explanation of the data contained in the figure and/or its parts should follow in standard (non-boldfaced) font.

Tables

Each table should have a brief, specific, descriptive title, giving sufficient explanation to make the data intelligible without reference to the text. Number all tables and cite in numerical order in the text, using Arabic numerals.